


In Any Way I Could

by Blizzaurus



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Abby loves sunflowers, Blakes are darling flowershop darlings, But a lot more mutual pining instead, F/M, Indra is Emerson Cod, Marcus is a gardener instead of a piemaker, Pushing Daisies AU, This fic won't have as much murder solving as the original show, and creative ways to touch each other without actually touching, because of course she is
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-30
Updated: 2018-01-26
Packaged: 2019-01-26 11:25:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12556392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blizzaurus/pseuds/Blizzaurus
Summary: As far as Marcus could remember, he'd had the extraordinary ability of bringing dead things back to life just by touching them. So when Abby Griffin, his best friend's widow and the woman he loves, dies, he has a solution at hand. But there are stipulations to his gift; in order to keep her alive, he can never touch her again.(A Pushing Daisies AU written for the 2017 Halloween Challenge).





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The first chapter ended up being so long I decided to split it in two. There's more of the actual premise in the second chapter which I will post sometime during the next week.

Marcus Kane was 8 years, 137 days, 5 hours and 24 minutes old when he had the first inkling that he wasn't quite like the other kids. Or anyone else for that matter.

His mother loved her garden in the backyard of their house in the small town of Arkadia, and young Marcus loved to see her mother happy. So when her most prized bonsai tree eventually died after years of careful pruning and watering, Marcus did the only thing he could to bring the smile back on his mother's face and gave the tree a light touch. In an instant, its leaves turned green, and the trunk and the branches rose up the skies with vigorous life again. The frown on his mother's face was replaced with an astonished smile when she saw the tree no longer grey and mottled after leaving it just for a moment alone with her son. 

At the time it had seemed perfectly ordinary for Marcus to be able to touch dead plants and bring them back to life in order make his mother happy. He didn't feel the need to question his peculiar ability the other children seemed to lack since he quite enjoyed the way Vera ruffled his hair, kissed his forehead and called him her "little miraculous helper."

Marcus only realized that his gift was something bigger and far more dangerous than he had previously believed after he encountered a dead body for the first time.

The body happened to belong to his father who had collapsed into his armchair after coming home drunk late one night and hadn't risen up in the morning. Marcus didn't particularly like his father who more often than not brought his mother to tears by just a few, biting words, so even far into the late afternoon he hadn't felt the need to wake him up from his slumber. His slumber happened to be of the eternal kind for his heart had given up not long after he had slumped into the chair.

This Marcus realized only after noticing the alarming amount of flies his father was attracting. 

After the snaps of Marcus' fingers in front of his father's face failed to draw a response, Marcus lowered his ear to his chest and didn't hear a single heartbeat. His father was dead.

While trying to decide how he felt about this fact, he absent-mindedly brushed his father's bare arm with his fingers. Marcus gave out a shriek when the dead man twitched, lifted his head and looked around, confused, until his eyes fixed on Marcus.

"Why the hell are you gaping at me like that?" he snarled at Marcus. "Get out of my sight, my head is killing me and you're making it worse."

When Marcus didn't immediately scram, and just stared at his father with his mouth hanging open, the scowl on the older man's face deepened. He rose up from the chair and approached Marcus with frighteningly heavy steps.

"Listen to me, brat—" he started, but the very minute his fingers wrapped around Marcus' wrist to wrench him closer, his whole body stiffened and turned into the sickly, grey color it had been moments before. He crumpled down on the floor like a ragdoll.

Marcus crouched down and took hold of his face, trying to shake him back awake, but the man remained cold and lifeless. When his mother came home and saw the body, Marcus told her everything else except how he had resurrected his father for exactly fifteen seconds. He was old enough to understand that revealing this secret wouldn't bring anything good. 

* * *

He had a chance to test the exact limitations of his powers when a bird collided with the window of the church during's his father's funeral. While everyone was too busy trying to make up nice stories about his father, Marcus slipped outside and searched for the bird. Just as he had expected, the poor creature was dead, its wings bent in an unnatural position on the ground. But when Marcus flicked his thumb over the bird's head, the animal immediately lifted its head and let out a surprised coo.

Marcus watched as the bird straightened its wings and started to walk around like nothing had happened to it in the first place. It was too dazed to try to fly away before Marcus patted it on the head again. The bird immediately slumped on the ground again, cold and dead under his fingers.

"I'm sorry bird," Marcus said, swallowing back a lump in his throat.

The two rules started forming in his head.

1\. First touch: Life.  
2\. Second touch: Death for good.

There was also a third rule he wasn't aware of yet. But at the time the first two were overwhelming enough. 

* * *

If young Marcus had been a shy, cautious boy before, he was that even more when burdened by his secret. Vera Kane didn't know that the reason her son had turned so sad and timid was that he wasn't too keen for his peers to discover that he could wake the dead and kill them by touching them again. However, his mother thought that there was nothing a little friendship wouldn't solve. 

The perfect opportunity to get his son some company arose when a nice family called the Griffins moved to the house next to them. They had a son who was of the same age as Marcus and Vera couldn't have been more excited to introduce the two.

That's how Marcus found himself deserted to his neighbors' yard with a strange boy while Vera gave a tour of her greenhouse to Mr. and Mrs. Griffin. Their son, Jake, was a tall boy with a mop of dirty blond hair, and his smile seemed to be permanently fixed on his face.

"What do you want to do?" Jake asked.

 _Go home_ , Marcus wanted to say but remained silent. He hoped his aloof demeanor would make Jake go away. And he should go away from him. Marcus was a freak, after all.

But Jake never stopped smiling. "Wanna go jump in the leaves?"

He gestured towards the enormous pile of yellow, red and brown leaves his parents had raked up into the middle of the yard. It looked like a perfect, fluffy pile to sink himself into and forget all the worries of the world. Marcus gulped. 

"Looks good, doesn't it?" Jake asked. "My parents put a lot of work into creating that magnificent pile. It would a _shame_ if something happened to it."

Jake flashed him a grin and dashed towards the pile. Marcus saw the boy plunge deep amid the leaves that started flying and whirling around at the sudden impact. The ringing sound of his laughter revealed that he had made a soft landing. It looked like so much fun, and Marcus didn't want anything more than to follow suit.

"Your turn!" Jake called out, trying to gather the leaves back together into a pile with his hands.

Marcus, who desperately craved acceptance that didn't come from his mother or one of her bonsai trees, found his feet running almost involuntarily towards Jake and the pile. He only realized that he was jumping into _dead_ leaves the moment he sank into the crisp cushion of the pile.The colorful colors of the fall were immediately replaced with lively green everywhere his skin grazed.

Marcus staggered up to his feet, his breath caught in his throat at the sight of the revived leaves. He prepared himself for the worst. Jake would call him names, tell his mom who would tell the police, or the priest, or whoever managed these sort of supernatural quirks and they would take him away from his mother and...

"Was that you or the leaves?" Jake asked, staring at the pile with a bemused expression on his face.

As an answer Marcus sighed and swept his hand over the leaves, turning them brittle and brown again. "There's nothing I can do about it, dead things just come back to life when I touch them and die when I touch them again."

Jake didn't even blink."Ah, cool," he said. "Could you fluff the leaves now that you're done? I wanna jump again."

Now Marcus was thoroughly confused. "You're not freaked out by this?"

Jake shrugged. "I have seen weirder stuff on tv. "

"But— but I'm not normal!" Marcus exclaimed. He couldn't understand why Jake was still even standing there. He should've run away screaming ages ago.

"My mom used to say that normal people are overrated," Jake said, smiling. "Besides, it's the coolest thing ever that my new friend has superpowers."

"Your friend?" Marcus repeated as if the word was the most astonishing thing he had ever heard.

"Of course you're my friend now." Jake smiled. "C'mon, let's go test what happens if you touch that half of a worm I found in the bucket before my parents get back."

Marcus watched how his new friend ran towards the shed, and for the first time in forever, he felt that he could be himself with someone. He followed after Jake, and after he returned home in the evening, he had a best friend for life.

* * *

Jake made Marcus quickly see the perks of his gift as he started the same school as him.

When the cafeteria had nothing edible to offer, the rotten apples fallen from the apple trees near the school were delicious again with just one touch.

When the goldfish of a cute girl in their class died, Marcus was able to make it happily swim again, earning them both a kiss on their cheeks, Marcus for "doctoring" and Jake for assistance.

When Cage Wallace, the notorious bully of the Arkadia middle school, called Jake a wimp, Marcus touched the frogs Cage and his gang were supposed to cut open during science class. The boys screamed and clambered up on their desks to escape from the frogs that had turned out be alive, and it was the most glorious sight ever. 

"I swear, that was the face of a boy who just shat himself," Jake recounted later during recess. "Cage will never live this down."

"I'm just worried about the frogs," Marcus said, rubbing the back of his neck. "I didn't have the time to catch them and turn them dead again."

"Does that matter?" Jake asked, his brow furrowed in confusion.

"It's just weird that there are suddenly four creatures alive that were not before. This whole resurrecting dead stuff is starting to feel like something that could throw the whole cosmos off balance."

Jake pondered it for the moment.

"I think," he mumbled. "You have read too many comic books and now you're overthinking this. You gave the frogs life. That makes you a hero. And heroes are ones who protect the balance of the universe."

"I guess," Marcus said and attempted a smile.

If the boys saw exactly four dead squirrels on the lawn below their science class window as they passed by, they certainly didn't mention it to each other. The family of squirrels had plunged to their abrupt demise exactly 60 seconds after Marcus had touched the four dead frogs, but neither of the boys was, nor wanted to be, aware of this fact.

* * *

As the years went on and they both finished school, the two men chose different paths of life but remained close friends. Jake chose to study engineering while Marcus followed his mother's footsteps to gardening. He moved to the city to tend his own greenhouse up on the roof of his apartment house. He had never wanted anything big or glorious from his life like Jake and was quite content with a quiet, happy life with his flowers, and tried not to draw too much attention to himself or his gift. 

He was still discovering new things about his mysterious ability. The latest peculiarity was that the more he revived dead plants in his garden (which admittedly made his work a lot easier), the more living plants in the proximity seemed to die. This was something he wanted to study further but never quite found the time; the reason being that despite having his own dear garden, he never passed the opportunity to pay a visit to his mother and help the aging woman with her yard.

He could also see Jake whenever he drove up to his mother's place. Jake's parents had left him the neighboring house, so Marcus could catch up with his oldest friend during the same visit by just walking up the next door.

Marcus was exactly 24 years, 99 days, 7 hours and 11 minutes old when he once again knocked on Jake's door. But this time, everything changed. Not in the subtle way that made him years later unable to pinpoint exactly when his life had turned brighter than the sun. No, he knew immediately that nothing would ever be the same as he laid eyes on the person who opened the door. 

There was a tiny woman standing in the doorway, curiously peering at him from under her long, dark lashes. Her golden brown hair cascaded down to her back as wild curls from her messy ponytail, but a few wispy strands had escaped from her hair tie and were hanging by the sides of her faces, framing her pretty features. Her lips were naturally slightly inclined downwards, but it didn't make her look her sad. No, her impossibly warm, lively brown eyes told a different story. 

She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen in his life.

"Hi," the woman said, offering him a tentative smile. "You must be Jake's friend."

"Hi," Marcus faintly uttered back, the walls of his throat suddenly turning into sandpaper at the sight of her smile. "And who are you?"

The question sounded a little gruff said aloud than in his head. He hadn't meant to be so abrupt but had suddenly found himself so desperate to learn her name that he forgot his manners.  

"I'm Abby."

 _Abby_ , he mouthed. The beautiful name fit her perfectly. 

But a name wasn't enough. Marcus felt the need to know everything about her, from her favorite color to her biggest dreams and fears. But then Jake materialized behind her. 

"I see you've already met my lovely fiancée," he said, wrapping his hand around Abby's shoulders.

When Jake saw Marcus' dumbstruck face, he grinned. "That's right, I'm getting married."

"Oh," Marcus said, suddenly feeling an odd, heavy weight settling down to the bottom of his stomach.

* * *

Abby Walters (who would later become Abby Griffin, and even later Abby Kane) was 22 years, 34 days, 13 hours and 45 minutes old when she met Marcus Kane. She didn't think much of him at first. Many years later she was, however, able to look back at the moment she first met him and cherish the memory endlessly.

But now she only looked blankly at him as Jake introduced him as his "old friend Marcus".

Abby attempted to shake hands with him, but he didn't even seem to see her held out hand. Only when Jake cleared his throat Marcus realized to give Abby's hand a squeeze.

"Nice to meet you," Abby said.

"Likewise," he grunted and shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his jacket.

Abby furrowed her brow. The man certainly didn't seem too keen to make a good impression on her. 

Jake sat them both into the coffee table and started eagerly recounting the story of how he and Abby had met (Jake had accidentally bumped into Abby and made her spill her coffee on the ground, he had asked for her number in order to buy her a new one, and the rest was history). Every once in a while Marcus nodded and smiled at Jake while he talked but Abby he avoided even glancing. At the door he had stared at her like he was confused by her whole existence, and now he was actively ignoring her. Abby didn't know which annoyed her more. 

"Abby is studying to be a doctor," Jake said proudly and laid a hand on her shoulder.

"Ah," was Marcus' only answer to that. When he remained silent, Jake tried desperately to keep the conversation going. "Marcus here is a bit of doctor too. He's a gardener and can nurse any plant back to life," he chuckled. 

Marcus shot him a glare. This seemed to some sort of an inside joke Abby clearly wasn't a part of.

"So what do you grow?" Abby asked. 

Marcus looked up, startled at having been directly addressed. _Jake has some lofty friend_ s, she thought. 

"Mostly roses. Some other flowers too, my mother likes tulips..."

"What about sunflowers?"

"Huh?"

Abby smiled. "Do you have sunflowers in your garden?"

"Not really, they take up a lot of space and need too much sunlight," he said, fiddling with the coffee cup in front of him. "Why?"

"It's just that if I were a gardener, I'd only grow sunflowers. They make me happy."

When Abby lifted her gaze from her cup, the man was looking at her in an awestruck way. "Sunflowers," he repeated with a marveling, soft voice.

Abby wondered if he was mocking her. "What, did you peg me for a rose girl?"

Marcus smiled at her and shook his head, and only then Abby noticed how kind his eyes were. Maybe she had been too hasty with her judgment. The impossible warmth of his gaze sent a tiny somersault in her stomach. Abby pushed a lock of her hair behind her ear and averted her gaze, feeling her cheeks get warm under his scrutiny.

* * *

Only when Marcus was sitting home with a large, just-bought bag of sunflower seeds under his arm, he realized that Abby might be a problem. He would have to stop dropping by Jake so often if he wanted to smother his budding attraction towards her. And he would have to throw out the sunflowers for his own good. 

After a month and a half of not seeing Jake Marcus grew frustrated at himself. A woman shouldn't come between him and his best friend, and it was ridiculous that he had even allowed that to happen. He went to see Jake immediately after making this decision and returned home feeling almost intoxicated by the sheer beauty and wit of his fiancée. _I have it under control_ , he thought as he bought another bag of sunflower seeds to replace the one he had thrown away, all the while humming the song Abby had named as her favorite.  

The next time he visited them, Abby gave him a goodbye peck on the cheek. After Marcus had staggered back to his car and gotten in, he had lowered his head on the steering wheel and let it rest there for a long while.

He was done for, and there was nothing he could do about it.

* * *

Marcus Kane frustrated Abby endlessly. Whenever the man came to visit nowadays, Abby could barely get two words out of him. He didn't share anything about his personal life and seemed to withdraw into himself every time Abby asked him about his work or family, or why he never took off his gloves. If they were left alone by Jake, Marcus stayed quiet, but sometimes Abby would catch him gazing at her, only for him to guiltily look away a moment later.

He was truly an enigma.

But what puzzled Abby more than his lack of words was the fact that he seemed extremely aversed to her touch. One evening when she had been cooking and Marcus had been sitting on the couch, waiting for Jake, Abby had asked for his help. Marcus had agreed to chop the vegetables but had flinched every time Abby's fingers did as much as brushed his own as they worked together in the cramped space.

She had wanted to thank him for his help by giving him a friendly hug, but the man had evaded her touch like a slippery eel.

The more he tried to avoid her, the more desperate she grew in her pursuit of making some kind of contact with him.

She would often go lean against the fence separating the two yards whenever she saw Marcus working in his mother's garden and tried to strike up a conversation. He only offered her one-worded answers, and every now and then glanced at her nervously, as if to see if she was still there. If she didn't get to chat with him, at least she got to watch him. She would never admit it to her fiancé, but his friend was one of the most handsome men she had ever seen with his strong arms and tousled dark curls that fell to his forehead while wordlessly worked. 

One warm summer night during Vera's garden party Abby was tipsy and desperate enough to fling her hands around Marcus' neck and ask him to dance with her. The outcome was unsurprising.

"No thank you," the man said, and wriggled his way out of her hold.

Those three words seemed to be the ones she would most often hear from his mouth. "No thank you," he said whenever Abby offered to set him up with someone. "No thank you," he said when Abby tried to give him lemonade while he worked. "No thank you," he used to say even before Abby had even opened her mouth. It was slowly driving her mad.

Finally Abby voiced her concerns to her fiancé.

"I have a feeling Marcus doesn't like me very much," Abby muttered, curling up against Jake on their couch.

"Why do you think that?" he asked, lazily playing with her hair.

"He never speaks to me if not spoken to, hardly looks at me in the eye for a few seconds longer, and flinches whenever I touch him."

Jake remained silent for a long while before answering. 

"He's like that with everyone. Don't you worry about it, baby, " he said and pressed a kiss on her forehead.

Abby knew for a fact that this wasn't true (she had witnessed several hugs and lively conversations Marcus had had with other people) but found it sweet that her fiancé didn't want her feelings to get hurt, if not slightly annoying.

She resigned to her fate; Jake's best friend disliked her for some unfathomable reason and she would perhaps never find out why. 

* * *

The day before her and Jake's wedding there was a knock on the floor. When Abby opened it she was faced with an abundance yellow-brown flowers in an enormous vase. They were sunflowers, taller and more radiant than Abby had ever seen, and her hand found its way up to cover her mouth from the sheer astonishment. 

She had to crane her neck to see who had left the flowers, and her smile grew radiant as she saw the familiar, tall frame of a certain glove-wearing man walking at a brisk pace towards the neighboring house. Abby suppressed the urge to run after Marcus and plant his face in kisses. It appeared that he had his own way of showing affection for her and it wasn't physical.

She carried the flowers inside, a whole new, warm feeling towards Marcus blooming inside her chest. Interestingly, it never quite faded away but persisted quiet and lingering in her heart for years to come.

The sunflowers she received never wilted.

* * *

To Jake and Abby's wedding, Marcus wore his best suit and a smile so broad his cheeks ached. He was happy for Jake. He couldn't have found a more perfect wife. This he kept repeating in his head as he downed one drink after another. Eventually, Abby found him nursing a glass of wine in the stairway. 

"Thank you for the flowers," Abby said, smiling one of her maddeningly soft smiles at him. She looked like an angel in her white wedding dress. Marcus took another large sip of his drink. 

She settled herself next to him on the stairs.

"We are friends, right?" she asked.

Marcus snapped his head around. "Of course we are," he said, perhaps little too quick, little too drunk. 

Abby smiled down to her lap. "Good, because I do care about you, no matter how difficult you make it sometimes."

"I care about you too," Marcus said weakly. _More than you know._

"Can you keep a secret?" Abby asked, entwining her fingers with his. Marcus watched as she placed their joined hands on her stomach and let them rest there. His eyes widened at the implication.

"Jake doesn't know yet," she whispered, her eyes glimmering from happiness.

Marcus' mouth twitched into a smile. He flung his arm over her shoulder and drew her closer to press a kiss on her forehead which made Abby let out a surprised laugh.

"I'm happy for you," he said, and his words couldn't have been more sincere. In that moment he realized that what he truly wanted was her happiness, nothing else.

* * *

Eventually, Abby gave birth to a daughter she named Clarke who was the most beautiful child Marcus had ever seen. Abby graduated from medical school and became the best doctor in the whole county. Jake climbed the career ladder in the company called Jaha industries and earned them enough money to move to a bigger house, but they decided to stay as neighbors of Vera Kane for her son had become an integral part of their little family. 

Abby and Jake's marriage flourished while all of Marcus' relationships crashed and burned as his girlfriends saw the way he looked at Abby. 

But Marcus wasn't unhappy, on the contrary. He loved Jake, and he loved Abby and their little daughter, and his love for them made him happier than anything else would have ever done. He had long ago accepted that his feelings for Abby would never go away or be reciprocated, but he didn't grow depressed about the fact. Instead, he relished in her friendship.

Unbeknownst to him, one evening as Abby watched Marcus play with Clarke she realized that she loved him too. Whether this love was too similar to the one she felt towards Jake wasn't something she was particularly interested in exploring. She, however, didn't try to stifle it since she understood that not all love needed fulfillment. All that mattered was that they both were happy.

Sometimes it even felt that they had a mutual understanding on the matter, especially on nights when Marcus stayed over after babysitting Clarke and Abby was so tired after work that she just slumped on the couch and rested her head on his shoulder. Marcus would tilt his head to lean against hers, and just stay quiet.

Abby never wanted it to end.

* * *

On the morning of the worst day of Marcus' life, his mother was baking him a pie. Vera Kane was 63 years, 18 days, 3 hours and 57 minutes old when a blood vessel in her head burst, killing her instantly.

At the same time, Jake was sitting on his patio, drinking his morning coffee when he noted that some of the roof tiles of his house were in desperate need of fixing. He went to get ladders and equipment from the garage.

Marcus knocked on her mother's door. When he received no answer, Marcus grew concerned and climbed over the fence. He let himself in by the back door and found his mother sprawled lifeless on the kitchen floor.

Meanwhile Jake whistled while he carried his ladder to the backyard.

Marcus let out a weak wail at the sight of his mother and crouched down on the floor beside her. He didn't stop to think when he took off his gloves. All he knew was that he had a gift of life at his fingertips and he'd be damned if he didn't use it on his only mother, the person who he loved more than anything in the whole world.

The very second Marcus' finger touched Vera's skin the woman's eyes snapped open.

 _60 seconds._ Jake put up the ladder against the side of his house. 

Vera's gaze shifted from Marcus' concerned face to her surroundings until she realized was lying on the tile floor of her kitchen.

"Oh, I must have slipped! How clumsy of me," she laughed, and Marcus offered her his hand to help her back to her feet, only to withdraw it immediately. _I can never touch her again_ , he realized. 

 _45 seconds_ **.** Jake mounted the first step of the ladder.

Vera picked herself off the ground on her own by taking support from the wall as her son seemed strangely unwilling to help her and only stared at her with a pained expression on his face. Vera dusted off her apron. "Is everything alright?" she asked Marcus.

 _30 seconds_. Jake climbed.

Marcus nodded and attempted a smile, but Vera remained skeptical. His son rarely shared his troubles with anyone, but with enough practice over the years, she had learned how to read him like an open book. And something was definitely wrong. 

 _15 seconds._ Jake had almost reached the roof.

Perhaps Marcus was just worried. His eyes followed Vera's every movement as if he was expecting her to collapse again any minute now. Vera pushed his strange behavior out of her mind when she heard the loud ping of the timer.

"Oh, the pie is ready!"

 _0 seconds._  

Jake's grip on the ladder loosened. His slack fingers unwrapped themselves from around the rail as the weight of his body pulled him down. He collapsed on the lawn with a sickening thud. 

* * *

The third rule of his gift Marcus discovered after finding Jake's lifeless body; keep a dead thing alive for more than a minute and something else had to die. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for saying in my first chapter that the update would be coming later that week. Life and other fics happened. 
> 
> The story starts following the plot of the show now, albeit very loosely. Kudos and comments very much appreciated!

There were certain regrets to be had as you stared down at the body of your best friend whose death you had just caused.

The first thing Marcus Kane regretted was that he'd never taken the time to thoroughly examine the side effects of his gift. There were no noticeable injuries, blood or dents on Jake; he looked like he was only sleeping. It was as if some force had struck him dead out of thin air. Marcus knew that this was his doing, and all because he'd brought back his mother without even thinking about the possible consequences. Tears started burning behind in eyes at the thought, but he tried to hold them back for Abby's sake.

The second regret was that he'd never come clean about his feelings for the weeping widow he was currently cradling against his chest. The secret had been tormenting his soul for years, and at this point, his heart was so wasted for Abby that he had to force himself not to thread his fingers through her hair and let his whole body ache at sight of her pain. 

The third regret was the heaviest of them all as Marcus watched Jake being lifted up and carried away by the paramedics. He hadn't done anything before the ambulance had arrived. He'd only stared at the body and tried to console Abby while knowing perfectly well that he could undo everything. With a simple little touch, Jake could be back and have his wife in his arms where she belonged. But that would entail another death. Marcus wasn't sure about the exact time frame, but at some point every spark of life he'd restore would be taken away from another being in the proximity. This much he knew now, and he would never do anything that put Abby or little Clarke even remotely at risk.

But still, Marcus could never forgive himself for not waking him.

* * *

Five months after Jake had been buried, Marcus was spending almost every awake hour with the Griffins.

At first, he'd only been helping around with the funeral arrangements, making sure all the right people were paid and all the necessities were taken care of. Then he'd started visiting them daily to help around with the house. He packed Clarke lunch, drove her to school, did laundry and bought groceries on the days Abby couldn't get out of bed. But the most important service he owed to her was keeping a tight hold of her while she wept and listening to her talk about her grief. 

Being her rock helped him keep his own guilt-ridden emotions bottled up. He couldn't break down when she needed him the most, and that knowledge was enough for him to keep himself together for almost half a year.

But then she started asking him to stay.

Every day as the night started to approach he tried to make excuses for leaving: he had an early morning at work or there were errands to run. But whenever he did as much as open his mouth Abby would stare at him with that look in her eyes and say those three frail words that rendered him powerless:

"I need you."

So Marcus stayed. He crawled to her bed, took her in his arms and held her until she fell into fitful sleep. Some mornings he would wake up to see Abby's hand lying between their bodies. It looked like she'd been reaching for him during the night. As if he was her husband.

What terrified him the most was that he knew deep in his heart he'd do far more than stay if only she asked. He hadn't been to his own home in days and was already sharing her bed so it was only a matter of time before he would move in. _Just for a short while_ , he'd tell himself. _Only to give Abby a helping hand with the house._ But before he'd even know it, he'd be asking Abby to marry him. _Only to give Clarke a father and make everything simpler_ , he'd try to justify it. 

If she said yes, he'd have Abby as his wife, and poor Clarke's memories of Jake would fade away until one day Marcus was the only father she'd ever known. In the end, he'd essentially replace Jake in every aspect of his life. His best friend who had died because of _him._

With these thoughts in mind, Marcus studied Abby's sleeping form one night. He watched her fluttering eyelashes, the tangled brown curls that tumbled over her shoulders, the clavicle he yearned to trace with his fingers, and the freckles peeking from under her ridden-up shirt. 

She was the most beautiful woman in all of creation, and he was a monster who thought he even had the right to be this close to her. 

He couldn't keep doing this. He couldn't do it to Jake. 

He couldn't do it to _her_.

* * *

 The next morning when Abby woke up, Marcus was gone. He had packed all of his belongings and cleaned up after himself, not leaving even one trace of proof that he'd once been an integral part of this household. 

He'd only left one note, tucked in the pot of the ever-blooming sunflowers he'd gifted her.

_I'm sorry._

Marcus never came back to her. He even stopped visiting his mother and only called her occasionally to make sure she was doing well. But Abby didn't receive even a single text message. The only proof she got that Marcus was still alive were the white roses that appeared on Jake's grave every anniversary of his death and the checks he kept sending to Clarke which Abby tore right at their arrival. 

Many bitter tears were shed because of Marcus as well as Jake. He'd fooled her, made her think that he'd actually cared about her, that he'd actually loved...

Abby was too devastated to finish the thought. The fact she had been nothing more than Jake's wife to him tore her heart to shreds. 

The damn sunflowers that never seemed to wilt Abby threw to trash.

* * *

Marcus vowed never to use his ability again which meant deserting his greenhouse and locking himself up in his apartment. He spent the first months either sleeping or lying in his bed, thinking about Jake. He forced himself to call his mother at least once every three weeks but kept the conversations short and made up excuses why he couldn't go visit her. He didn't know how to even begin to explain that he could never touch her again without killing her. 

He started dozens of letters addressed to Abby but always ended up crumpling them up and throwing them in the bin. Instead, he started writing checks addressed to Clarke and doubled the sum every time they remained uncashed. 

On some days when he felt particularly sorry for himself he browsed through photos of him and Jake as young boys and dove deeper and deeper into the dark place in his mind until there was not even the tiniest flicker of light to be seen in the horizon. 

This went on until one day there was a knock on the door. He wrenched himself off the bed and staggered to it. He opened the door ajar only to mutter "not interested" and was already closing it when a tiny foot wedged in the crack. 

The foot belonged to a scrappy, dark-haired young girl who was standing next to older, freckle-faced boy. The boy cleared his throat before starting his overtly formal introduction.

"Good morning, sir. My name is Bellamy Blake and this is my little sister Octavia Blake. We live two stories down."

"And what do you want to sell?" Marcus asked, rubbing the bridge of his nose. 

"Nothing, sir. We just wanted to know how you were doing," he said, smiling.

"Why do you ask?"

"As your neighbors, we're naturally worried about you."

That gave Marcus a pause. "I'm doing alright," he said hesitantly.

"Bullshit," the little girl said.

Marcus blinked at the vulgarity while Bellamy shot his sister a deadly glare.

"Please excuse Octavia's manners. The reason we're asking is that we've marked the state of your greenhouse."

"My greenhouse?"

"It hasn't been used in months," Bellamy explained and pressed his hands together in a businesslike manner. "Is there a possibility you might take up gardening again?"

"I'm done with gardening," Marcus said curtly and tried to close the door, but Octavia wrapped her fingers insistently around the handle. 

"Look at yourself," she said sharply, gesturing towards Marcus' unshaven face and sweatpants. "Whoever the hell you lost wouldn't want you wasting your life like this! In fact, that person would be asham—"

Bellamy took a rough hold of her and covered her mouth with his hand.

"Jesus, Octavia! We don't even know that he lost someone, now he's never going to agree to grow roses again!"

For the first time in months, there was a weary smile growing on Marcus' face as he watched the siblings squabble. 

"I'm guessing you two were the reason why there were flowers constantly missing from my greenhouse a year back?" he asked, crossing his arms with one of his eyebrows benignly quirked.

Bellamy froze in terror, but Octavia seemed impressed by his quick deduction.

"To be fair, you never locked the door," she grinned.

"We never would've stolen you from otherwise, but the stuff you put in your plants make them last like, forever, and people pay a lot of money for that kind of shit," Bellamy said, rubbing his neck. "One rose could buy food for a whole month."

Marcus took one look at the shabby appearance of the kids and surrendered with a sigh. 

"Come in, maybe we can strike up a deal."

As Marcus had suspected, the siblings were on their own. Their mother had died some time ago, leaving Bellamy as Octavia's guardian at only 15 years of age. This far they had made their living doing various small jobs varying from selling magazines to cleaning up windshields, but their most important source of income was Marcus' wonder flowers. There was a painful pang in Marcus' chest as he listened to their side of the story, and he felt wave of protectiveness rise in him. If he couldn't take care of Clarke, he could at least help these two.

After a series of surprisingly long and tight negotiations, (preteens could truly be ruthless when it came to business) Octavia spat on her hand and offered it to Marcus. "It's a deal."

Marcus shook her hand. The deal was that he would start growing roses again, nothing more, and let the Blakes "steal" them. He'd be reimbursed in pies Bellamy baked and left at his doorstep. He would've offered the roses for free, but the boy had too much pride to accept that kind of charity. 

The task of opening his greenhouse again and digging up some wilted roses didn't seem like much at first, but Marcus felt a heavy, agonizing weight in his stomach as he crouched down to touch the roses. When they bloomed back to life he had to blink back tears at the sight. 

He pulled on his gloves. The world wouldn't end if he gave a couple of roses to some poor kids. 

The world didn't indeed end, but something far stranger happened. The more he did it, the more Marcus started to enjoy gardening again. He remembered how much he had loved having the spark of life at his fingertips and how the hard work reminded him of his mother's smile. He also began to smile whenever the Blakes came to pick up the flowers which earned him bemused expressions.

"What's that thing you're doing with your face?" Bellamy would ask more or less sarcastically.

Roses were soon joined by lilies, peonies, irises, tulips and at last, _sunflowers_. The Blakes got so many flowers they didn't have enough arms to carry them, and after Octavia had come of age they ended up setting up their own little flower shop downstairs with the money they got from the ever-blooming roses.

The shop was named 'Darling Flower Darlings' on Marcus' suggestion ("because you two are a pair of darlings to me," he would say while ruffling their hair, earning himself a chorus of groans). The siblings had to agree to the name because they couldn't give Marcus anything else; he refused to take his share of the revenue. The only way they could give their love back to Marcus was to keep baking pies and visiting him, completely ignoring the fact that he'd agreed to grow them flowers only if they left him alone. Marcus was grateful that they hadn't followed through. He'd started to love those two kids more than anything. 

Today, ten years, 21 days, 1 hour and 13 minutes since Jake's death, the Blakes were once again knocking on the glass wall of the greenhouse. Marcus turned away from his roses and let a smile flicker across his features as he saw his visitors. 

"We figured we'd find you here," Octavia said and creaked the door open. "Look, Bellamy baked you a pie."

"Thank you, but I'm not hungry," Marcus said. 

"Too bad, we won't leave until you take a bite," Octavia said sternly. Marcus flashed her a weak smile. After all these years, he wasn't sure anymore who was the one taking care of who.

"It's rhubarb," Bellamy said and shoved him the plate. Marcus accepted it without further protests, smiling to himself. 

"You're in an unusually good mood," Octavia said and propping her elbows on the table. "Have you called her?"

"I called mother last week," Marcus said, taking a bite. The pastry melted onto his tongue and he had to struggle not to let out a sigh. It had been far too long since he last remembered to eat. 

"No, I didn't mean Vera. Have you called _her_?

Marcus' fork stopped midway to his mouth.

"I don't know who you mean," he said quickly.

He knew exactly who Octavia meant, and she was well aware of that. The little nuisance had dug up one of the crumpled up letters from Marcus' paper bin some weeks back and found the one worst suited for the eyes of a teenage girl with an overactive imagination. 

**_~~Dear~~ Abby,_ **

**_It would be a lie to say that I didn't still think about you every day..._ **

Marcus had snatched the letter from Octavia's hands before she'd managed to read more, but the damage had already been done. The girl hadn't stopped talking about Abby ever since and was convinced that the key to Marcus' happiness lied with the woman. If only real life was that simple.

The letter had been written during one of his weakest moments and was embarrassing to reread, but Marcus couldn't claim that every word of it hadn't been true. He still thought about Abby, but now she only caused a dull ache of longing in his chest instead of the deep remorse he'd felt for many years. Still, he couldn't help but regret his own actions from when he'd been a young, heartsick man. She would've deserved better. 

Marcus supposed that the fact that his love for her had never faded was the universe's way of punishing him for everything he'd done. 

Octavia shook her head at him, frustrated. "For fuck's sake Kane—" 

"Language!" Bellamy chided.

Octavia shot him a glare. "You'd lose your temper too if you had to deal with this mule."

"We didn't come here to bully Kane about his past, we came here to feed him and drag him out to socialize with the outside world."

"A: I'm still in the room, B: no matter how many times you ask, I refuse to set up with one of your teachers," Kane said sternly.

"It's not about that at all," Bellamy turned to Kane with a smirk. "Indra is downstairs to see you—"

Marcus didn't need any more convincing. He was already on his feet before Bellamy had even finished the sentence. The boy watched him go with his brow raised in amusement.

* * *

Detective Inspector Indra Woods was the sole keeper of Marcus' secret and had been that ever since she'd accidentally witnessed his gift in action during one of her stakeouts. One night she'd been huddled on Kane's rooftop with a mug of steaming hot coffee in her hands, waiting for the man she'd been hired to observe to go visit his lover in the opposite house so she could take some incriminating photos. As usual.

But then something far more interesting had happened.

The man who apparently owned the garden that consumed the whole rooftop had arrived to examine his rotten watermelons in the middle of the night, not noticing Indra's hideout. Indra had been tempted to make her presence known by saying something nasty about nutjobs who thought they could grow watermelons on city rooftops but had been rendered speechless as she'd had seen the man touch the dead plants. Even in the dim lighting, Indra had been able to see that the watermelons that had been rotten to their core just a few seconds ago had no longer been so. What was even stranger, exactly a minute later Indra had seen two pumpkins shrivel up and die. The man hadn't seemed too fazed about the loss, only putting on his gloves and rolling the pumpkins into a bag. 

Long after the man had left Indra had been sitting frozen in her hideout, trying to process what she had just seen until the coffee in her mug had been only congealed brown sludge.  _If what she'd had seen was what she thought it to be, her career was forever changed._

She'd returned to the same rooftop the day after that, and again on the day after that until she'd finally found him and had been able to confront him. 

Kane hadn't been very cooperative at first.

"Are you trying to blackmail me?" he'd barked out immediately after she'd told him about her observations.

"Not at all. I'm merely suggesting that you'd use your magical powers for something more important than growing watermelons and killing off pumpkins."

"It was nothing personal. I'll revive the pumpkins once it's Halloween again, but now I have no need for them. Besides, I do not grow watermelons with my 'magical powers'. I have a perfectly ordinary set of skills to grow fruits, vegetables, flowers..."

"You have the ability to resurrect dead things, even dead  _people,_ and you're talking about pumpkins," Indra had hissed, rubbing her temples. "Don't you see how much good you could do with this?

"I don't see the point. As I explained to you already, anyone I'd chose to wake could only stay alive for a minute before I'd have to touch them again to make sure no one else dies in their place. Believe me, I have tested this hundreds of times with different types of plants and timers. If I touch something, it takes exactly 60 seconds before something else shrivels up."

"A lot of good can happen before the 60 seconds is up."

"Humor me," Marcus had said with a tired voice, focusing on his roses again.

Indra had laced her fingers together. _Time to make her business proposition._

"Have you ever considered waking up a murder victim to ask who killed them?"

Of all the possible things Indra could've uttered, this had been the only one capable of making Marcus halt. 

* * *

Indra was leaning against the flower shop counter with a cup of coffee in her hands when Marcus stepped in. She immediately scrunched up her brow as she saw him. "When was the last time you shaved?" 

"You always say that. The beard is _staying_ ," Marcus said poignantly, already tugging on his jacket. "Shall we get to the car?"

"Aren't you eager."

"No wonder. You haven't shoved up with a new gig in weeks _._ "

One of the rare, wry smiles of Indra Woods was tugging at the corner of her mouth as she laid his eyes on Kane. "What did I say? I knew you'd be hooked."

"I'm not embarrassed to admit that you were right now that even Bellamy saw the speed I dashed downstairs. Judging by the way he was waggling his eyebrows at me he probably thinks we're hooking up."

Indra looked less than amused at the suggestion.

"Can you blame the boy?" Marcus asked and pulled the door open, gesturing for Indra to follow him quickly. "He has no way of guessing what we're really doing."

"Slow down Kane, the body is not going anywhere," Indra grumbled when she had to jog after Kane.

* * *

After Indra's initial proposition, Marcus had only agreed to visit the morgue with her once. They went to see a man found stabbed in a public restroom for one of her cases.

After recovering from his remorse for having to do the one thing he'd vowed to never attempt again, Marcus had forced himself to touch the cold body. The dead man had immediately opened his eyes and looked up at them in confusion.

"Who stabbed you?" Indra had asked while Kane had stared at the watch, his stomach in tight knots.

"It was my pal Whitman, the son of a bitch couldn't get that I was going give his money back eventually. Wait, where am I—?"

Marcus had already touched the man again and he'd fallen back on the pad, dead as a rock. 

For Indra, it had been astonishingly easy to find evidence against Whitman when she'd already known he'd been the culprit. She had torn apart his weak alibi and the man had been arrested in no time. 

"Feel's good, doesn't it?" Indra had asked Kane as they had watched the police march Whitman away in handcuffs. 

"Yes," Marcus had breathed out. He'd felt better than in a long time. He'd actually caused something good with his curse, and the feeling of clear conscience was almost intoxicating. For the first time in years, it had seemed like Jake could actually be proud of him.

From that moment on, he'd been hooked. Solving murders made him feel like a decent person again, and since he refused to take money from the Blakes, it was also his only source of income. Indra always split the reward of finding the culprit neatly in half and gave Marcus his share. It was enough to pay for the greenhouse and allowed Marcus to write even bigger checks to Abby which were, sadly, still going uncashed. After ten years she still seemed to be holding a grudge against him, but Marcus couldn't really blame her.

He pushed back the thoughts about Abby, forcing himself to focus on the task of solving the newest case. He seated himself in the car with Indra. 

"So who's the victim?" Marcus asked as he switched on the ignition.

"Ask me about the reward money," Indra said and tipped the coffee cup to her lips. 

Marcus sighed. "Alright, how big is the sum?"

" _30,000_ dollars," Indra drawled. "The victim was a woman in her forties and an extremely popular doctor in her local hospital. All the patients she'd ever helped raised the money to catch her murderer."

"I don't know about that. It feels wrong to take their money," Marcus said hesitantly.

"I suppose I could pay my bills with the smiles of her patients... but money's a lot easier," Indra muttered.

"How was she killed?"

"By a blunt object to her head after somebody had broken into her house. The police in Arkadia have no idea who could've done it, and that's where we step in."

"Arkadia?" Marcus repeated with a shrill voice. Indra glanced at her partner who seemed oddly pale all of a sudden. She quirked her eyebrow quizzically at him.

"Yes, the incident happened in the small town of Arkadia."

After a long pause, Marcus spoke up again."What is her name?" 

"Let me check," Indra said, taking a sip of her coffee while she skimmed over the report. "It's Abigail Griffin."

The car jerked to a halt with a loud screech. Indra's head jerked forward, as did the contents of her coffee cup which landed on her lap. She let out a loud curse and snapped her head towards Kane, but the scathing words on her tongue died once she saw the expression on his face. 

He was gripping the steering wheel with white knuckles, his face ashen and eyes wide in sheer terror.

"Please say the name again," he managed to choke out.

"Abigail Marie Griffin, née Walters. Did you know her?" Indra asked, slowly becoming concerned. 

Marcus closed his eyes and rested his head against the steering wheel. Only the faintest "no" was able to escape his throat. Indra watched the man she considered her friend crumble to pieces just at that one name, and it was making her extremely uncomfortable. She even considered placing a comforting hand on his shoulder but decided against it. She wasn't much into physical displays of affection.

"You know what? We don't have to do this, let's just go bac—"

The car jerked into motion again, causing Indra to have a yet another minor whiplash. 

"No, we are going to the morgue," Kane said, a sudden determination laced into his voice. His expression had completely changed from what it had been just a moment ago. There was almost a furious gleam in his eyes as he steered the car sharply to the right. 

"Are you sure?" Indra asked, taking support from the wall as they swerved.

"Absolutely," the man said with a hollow voice, and Indra would've been lying if she claimed she wasn't a little scared of Kane at the moment. He looked almost mad with his clenched jaw and his fierce gaze fixed on the road. The wisest decision would undoubtedly be to tell him to go home and come back when he didn't look like he wanted to rip out someone's spine.

But on the other hand, 30,000 dollars was a lot of money. She might even make Kane's share bigger if he got through this without completely losing his mind.

* * *

When they arrived at the morgue, Marcus immediately dashed through the door and would've kept running until he found where they kept the body if he hadn't been stopped by the familiar clacking of the tongue.

"Not so fast," Murphy, the mortician's assistant, said with a lazy voice, his eyes glued to the comic book he was reading. "You forgot something."

Indra sighed and slid him a stack of dollar bills.

"Pleasure doing business with you," Murphy said and flashed them a grin.

The young man had been sitting at the reception of the morgue as long as Indra could remember, and it was thanks to his easy corruptibility that she and Kane were even able to go see the bodies without any hassle with the permits. He also didn't ask too many questions, and only looked amused that Indra and Marcus could solve a murder after another by just taking a look at the body. He probably wouldn't be too amused if he knew what Marcus really did to the dead.

"The room you're looking for is 22," Murphy said and resumed his reading. Indra and Marcus walked in somber silence to the room.

The body of the woman was already laying on the table, covered with a thin sheet. Indra followed Marcus' reactions intently as she slowly slid it down to reveal Abigail Griffin to his eyes. 

When Marcus saw her face, his throat constricted so violently that he couldn't breathe. Ten years had not diminished her beauty, but it was harrowing to witness that the skin that had once glowed with joy was now pallid, her rosy red lips chapped and colorless, and her lively, warm eyes shut for good. 

_How could this have happened?_

After meeting Indra's concerned gaze, Marcus swallowed tightly, ignoring the painful prickling behind his eyes. He had no choice but to signal to her that he was ready to wake the victim. 

He briefly considered where to touch Abby. A touch on her lips was too intimate, the tip of her nose too playful, her jaw or forehead too formal. He eventually decided to lightly brush her cheek with his finger and felt immediate warmth start spreading under his touch. With his heart pounding in his chest, he watched life stream back to Abby's veins, filling her with the familiar glow he'd longed to see again for ten years.

"Starting the watch," Indra muttered. 

* * *

Abby Griffin had been unable to sleep the night of her murder. To put her mind off her worries about Clarke's first year in college, she'd gone to the kitchen to get herself a glass of water. Just then she'd heard loud noises from the garage. She'd grabbed a broom, believing that the intruder was only some animal to be shooed away. But when she'd opened the door, somebody had hit her from behind. Her vision had instantly blacked out at the violent impact, and she had fallen onto the hard floor of the garage with a sickening thump. 

The next time she opened her eyes, she was faced with the most unexpected sight. There was a tall, dark-skinned woman staring at her watch on her left, and on her right she saw a man with messy dark locks and bloodshot eyes staring down at her. She had to blink twice to recognize him as Marcus.

Marcus, who she hadn't seen in years, was indeed standing there with his face twisted in anguish. He had grown himself a beard, his hair was longer and his features aged, but the sad brown eyes were still the same. 

All the cruel things she'd planned to say to him if she ever saw him again were immediately forgotten. Abby wanted to tell him she was alright, that it had been just a fall, and give his hand a reassuring squeeze like she'd used to do whenever he'd looked particularly concerned about her.

She was already stretching out her hand weakly when Marcus' features suddenly tightened.

"I can't believe you got yourself killed!" he roared.

"60 seconds, remember," the strange woman said, tapping at her watch. 

"What?" Abby said, utterly confused.

"You have a daughter! People who love you!"

"We really don't have time for personal business, Kane," the woman next to him hissed.

"Wait a minute, are you saying I'm dead?" Abby asked.

Just then she became aware of the cold, hard table she was lying on, and that only a thin sheet was covering her naked body. She clutched the sheet against her chest and rose to sit up, her cheeks burning.

"You are dead, and that's precisely why you are here, naked in the morgue," Indra said matter-of-factly. "Let's get to the point. Did you see the face of your attacker? Was it someone you knew?"

"If I'm dead, how—"

"Just answer the question! We're trying to solve your murder here."

"I didn't see who it was.The last thing I remember is that someone got me from behind, and that's it."

Inda stroked her jaw. "Do you have any enemies? Or people who would benefit from your death?"

Abby shook her head vigorously, causing the woman's face to fall. She then turned to Marcus. "Is this only temporary? Me not being dead anymore?"

"I can only keep you alive for one minute," he whispered.

Abby nodded in a quiet, sorrowful understanding. She, like the other victims, wasn't very interested in asking an endless amount of questions on how it was possible for her to be alive when she knew that she wouldn't be that for much longer. 

When Indra noticed the remorseful way the dead woman and Kane were looking at each other, she decided to give them some privacy. She really didn't want to get mixed in whatever the hell these two used to be to each other.

"You have exactly 27 seconds left to deal with your personal issues," she called out before leaving the room. Her departure went completely unnoticed. 

"Could you tell Clarke that I love—" Abby started.

"Yes, of course," Marcus said before she'd even finished. He looked sadly down. 

"You left," Abby stated. She hoped that the one simple sentence was enough to convey everything she'd wanted to say to him for years. _You abandoned us. You broke my heart. I loved you, and I guess I still do because I want nothing more than to forgive you now that I'll be dead soon._

"There is so much to apologize for and so much to tell you, but we don't have time. I'm so sorry for everything—"

"It's okay," Abby said and gave him a sad little smile, to which Marcus responded with his own. For a while, they just stayed quiet. Marcus yearned to say the three little words weighing on his heart, but they grew heavy and sticky in his throat every time he tried to force them out. Abby's gaze was understanding, and she didn't attempt to sputter out her feelings either. Everything they meant to each other hung unsaid in the air, but all of it was somehow still louder than words. 

"So how does this work, do I just die?" she asked, wiping her suddenly damp cheeks with the back of her hand. 

"In 13 seconds I'm going to touch you and you go back to being dead," Marcus said with a somber voice. 

"That sounds lousy," Abby chuckled through her tears. "Give me a kiss instead, make it like New Year's."

"What?"

"Remember the New Year's Eve of '05? Jake was passed out on the couch and you were supposed to kiss me at midnight, but you chickened out at the last second. This is your chance to right that wrong. A kiss after the count of ten would be one of the nicest ways to go." Abby smiled and closed her eyes. "I want that."

Whatever Abby wished Marcus couldn't deny from her, especially if it was goodbye kiss. But as tempting as the idea of his lips pressing softly against hers was, Marcus couldn't will himself to move. He could only watch her closed eyelids and the soft movements of her lips as she counted down the seconds and know deep in his heart that he'd never be capable of ending her life. He couldn't allow a world where Abby Griffin wasn't alive to exist.

After their remaining seconds dwindled away and Abby's mouth stopped moving, she waited a moment before opening her eyes. 

"Marcus, isn't our time up?"

They got their answer as they heard the sound of a body collapsing in the next room.


End file.
